Mom makes an interesting point.

I was chatting with my mom this afternoon (3:45pm here = 6:45am there... they're early risers) and she pointed out the following:

just one very important thought............did you realize that you are the age now that i was when your were born?

I don't know what that means. But it's kinda freaking my shit out.

Things I learned at Art Forum Berlin.

Here is a short list of things I learned while visiting Art Forum in Berlin on Wednesday:

That, sir, is a ridiculous hat.

You can put feet on anything, and I'll think of it as human.

I don't like video art exhibits. Ever.I just can't take them seriously. Every single one has that jumpy, grainy, black and white footage of pouty women and/or men dancing or staring off into space or both, with no discernible plot or point. And we all watch, in those stupid square rooms painted all black, sitting on those hard block benches, with our chins resting on our knuckles, brows furrowed, nodding slightly, pretending to be interested while desperately hoping to see the word "Fin" or some tits. Ridiculous.

I like big versions of small things. You can take anything - coffee cups, thimbles, a sweater - and make it really really big, and I think it's art. And awesome. The gigantic Fiat 500 at the Frankfurt auto show was the ginchiest. And there's this big ol' Nokia cell phone used as an ad outside a cell phone shop 'tween my house and the office, and if it would fit in my bag, I'd totally steel that shiz. And outside of a lot of ice cream shops here in Hamburg are GIGANTIC plastic ice cream cones with three colorful scoops on top. I'm such a sucker for those things.

That's what I've been saying all along!

Yeah! Finally, someone with more power and influence than me (well, any power and influence is more like it) is doing something about the disgustipating mess that is the Heathrow airport. I had to travel through that hell hole on British Airways several times in the last few years, and it was always a major pain in the arse - long bus rides, followed by long walks to long lines. And if I remember correctly, you have to go through security twice. Double your pleasure. If your plane is more than ten seconds late, you're sure to miss your connection.

It's bad, bad, bad. So what did they do?They installed signs that say "If you get mad and yell at one of our employees, we'll throw your ass in the slammer. So keep your mouth shut and suffer, bitch."

Or something like that.

We're all White Trash.

Met up with Jens and Eric and friends last night at a grrrrrrreat bar/restaurant called White Trash Fast Food. Its run by a bunch of Brits and Americans, and it's the kind of place that really makes an expat feel at home. Everyone spoke English effortlessly, the place was decorated ceiling to floor with a mix of kitschy and satanic, and the menu was hilarious - Fuck You Fries, The Fuck You Cheeseburger, and something about the tortilla chips being free, "unless you're a cunt", in which case they're ten Euros. Oh you cheeky Brits! All that, and the outstanding quality of the cheeseburger I ate (bacon motherfuckers!) make me want to move to Berlin immediately.

How international is this city? Just look at our table: one American, one Norwegian, one Swede, two Swiss, three Germans (one half Egyptian) and a lovely Dane. It would have been four Germans when Eric's girlfriend arrived, but instead of coming inside to eat, drink, and be marry, she stayed outside so they could argue and fight about whatever. Ah well. I didn't see Eric afterward, but I heard that he looked as if he'd been beaten by Somalian solders and dragged through the city.

Eric and Jens used to work where I work now, so we had a nice long bitch session, followed by compare and contrast, and perhaps best summarized by this thought: no matter where you go, no matter where you work, some people will be complete and utter morons. So make the best of it and keep smiling. Very philosophical. And then everyone got really hammered.

And to top it all off, today is German Reunification day - the Fourth of July for Germany - and a day off. Yes! And I poked my head out of the window to verify that indeed, the sun is shining and all is well with the world. I'm going to meet some folks from the JvM Berlin office and check out this big fat (and by the looks of the website, pink) contemporary art show extravaganza that I think is taking place near my hotel.

I think I'm turning German.

I'm on a train to Berlin right now - it's the third time in just over a week that I've gone someplace far away by train. The first time was Frankfurt for the car show, and the second time was the following Monday morning when I went to Berlin the first time.

But the most JvM thing ever happened on that trip. Friday evening I got word that I was going to Berlin on Monday because the Berlin office needed an English speaking writer (that's me). So we panicked a bit, then figured out tickets and times and places, and then I went to Frankfurt for the car show. Monday morning I would meet Sebastian, account planner extraordinaire, at the train station and we would head to Berlin together. He'd do the briefing, and I'd stay and work for the week.

We met at Central Station at 7:45am, got our tickets and sat down (more on the sitting down part in a minute). The Hamburg to Berlin express train does it's thing in an hour and forty five minutes. And half way through, as Sebastian was telling me all about the brief, he got a phone call. The trip was cancelled, the meeting was cancelled, me working there all week long was cancelled, all as we hurtled towards Berlin at 250 km/h. Apparently they were busy with something, don't come in, we have no time for you, go back home, thanks anyways, bye.

The thing about an express train is, it doesn't stop. So we went to Berlin. I was all for taking a few hours off and having a fun day (they've got a zoo!) but Sebastian really needed to get back to the office and get some work done. We asked information when the next train back to Hamburg was. There was a train leaving in ten minutes, but we decided that that would be absurd. So we signed up for the train fifteen minutes after that. So last week I was in Berlin for twenty six minutes. And had a meeting at over 200 km/h.

Anyways, the whole point of this is that I think I'm turning German. As I walked down the aisle of the train looking for my seat this morning, it occurred to me that on the last two trips I took, both times we had reserved seats, but we didn't sit in them. And that for a few seconds each time, it really got my goat.

See, the deal is that when you book a train ticket, reserving a seat is optional, and like two Euros extra. Then you board the train and each pair of seats has a little digital display above them. If the label says something like "Hamburg-Berlin", that means it's reserved from Hamburg to Berlin. If the label is blank, the seat is free and anyone can sit there. On an early morning (yaaaaaaaaawn) train like the ones I've been taking (cheap!), there are always plenty of seats free. But on a busy every-body-commutes-home-at-that-time train it's a good idea to reserve a seat so you don't end up sitting in the aisle. So I always book a seat, because it's practically free, and I like the peace of mind, and fuck it, the company is paying. And when I train it all by my lonesome, I dutifully find my reserved seat, and I sit in it because that's the way it works, right?

Well, apparently not. The last two times I've been on early trains with Germans (okay, Julia is Austrian, but close enough), we've boarded the train and then the German says "Oh whatever, let's just sit here" all willy nilly like. WELL! How un-German is that? Both Julia and Sebastian are perfectly respectable people, so this came right outta left field. Up is down and soft is prickly and nothing is right when the Germans are shunning their assigned seats. And each time I had a microscopic panic attack as I visualized two seats with our names on it just sitting there, empty, while we took up two unreserved seats. That's FOUR WASTED EUROS and TWO WASTED SEATS! The universe falls out of balance and an adorable baby seal PLUMMETS off the edge of the planet into an abyss of burning fire. That is just not right. Around here, you can get deported for shit like that.

So when I return to The States, I'm sure I'm going to have to be broken of my newfound Germanic ways and re-integrated back into society. Or maybe I should just fly RyanAir a few times because it's one of the only airlines on the planet that (gasp!) doesn't have assigned seating. So when they open the doors, everyone RUSHES ON BOARD as if they're trying to find the one seat that hasn't been peed on by a crackhead. Now that's American.